According to German public TV, Netanyahu was incensed by calls from Christoph Heusgen - an aide to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel - to link submarines to settlement freeze and Palestinian statehood; an aide to Netanyahu reportedly contacted Bild newspaper, which later published a negative article about Heusgen
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to have Christoph Heusgen, then an adviser to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, fired around 2010 during negotiations for Germany to supply Israel with a sixth submarine, according to a report by the German public television program "Panorama" on the ARD channel.
The report, which Heusgen confirmed, stated that Netanyahu was angered by Heusgen's demands that the submarine delivery be conditioned on a halt to Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and Israeli support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
According to the report, in late 2010 or early 2011, Ron Dermer, a close associate of Netanyahu and now a minister, approached Harald Kindermann, then Germany's ambassador to Tel Aviv, and demanded Heusgen's dismissal. At the same time, Dermer reportedly engaged with the German media conglomerate Axel Springer, which owns the newspaper Bild.
